EDITORIALS
Journal of Family Practice ALTHOUGH general practice in many countries is the largest single branch of the profession, it still has a remarkably small base of literature of its own. Although books and articles about general practice are now appearing with increasing frequency, there nevertheless remains a remarkable dearth of scientific journals of general practice and family medicine. Sir Theodore Fox once classified medical journals into journals of record and journals of information. The second group includes all those which seek primarily to convey news, factual information, and the large group of journals which primarily publish review articles designed to keep clinicians up to date. By contrast, journals of record are primarily scientific journals, designed to record and chart the evolution of their discipline. It is inevitable that they are superficially less attractive because in outlining with painstaking care small advances in practice, they are necessarily encumbered witk detailed figures, lists of tables, and a plethora of statistics. Both types of journal are essential; both meet a need in all living clinical disciplines. First, there is a necessity for journals of record to report the advances In the discipline, and this can be done only by practitioners of that discipline setting down on paper for discussion and criticism by their peers their ideas and results. Journals of information provide invaluable comment and especially summaries and interpretations, often of the work pioneered in other branches of medicine. In the English-speaking world general practice has been dangerously short of journals of record, and the evolution of the Research Newsletter of the College of General Practitioners, which was renamed on 1 January 1958 the Journal of the College of General Prac¬ titioners, has proved a precious lifeline through which research-minded general practitioners have been able to breathe life into each other's ideas. It will be an everlasting tribute to the early Research Committee of the College, and particularly to the late Dr R. M. S. McConaghey, that as early as the mid-1950s the need for a journal of record for general practice was iden¬ tified and met. For more than a decade it fell to the Royal College of General Practitioners in the United Kingdom to produce the only journal in English for general practice of the kind which has been established for many years in many other branches of medicine.
Journal of Family Practice ALTHOUGH general practice in many countries is the largest single branch of the profession, it still has a remarkably small base of literature of its own. Although books and articles about general practice are now appearing with increasing frequency, there nevertheless remains a remarkable dearth of scientific journals of general practice and family medicine. Sir Theodore Fox once classified medical journals into journals of record and journals of information. The second group includes all those which seek primarily to convey news, factual information, and the large group of journals which primarily publish review articles designed to keep clinicians up to date. By contrast, journals of record are primarily scientific journals, designed to record and chart the evolution of their discipline. It is inevitable that they are superficially less attractive because in outlining with painstaking care small advances in practice, they are necessarily encumbered witk detailed figures, lists of tables, and a plethora of statistics. Both types of journal are essential; both meet a need in all living clinical disciplines. First, there is a necessity for journals of record to report the advances In the discipline, and this can be done only by practitioners of that discipline setting down on paper for discussion and criticism by their peers their ideas and results. Journals of information provide invaluable comment and especially summaries and interpretations, often of the work pioneered in other branches of medicine. In the English-speaking world general practice has been dangerously short of journals of record, and the evolution of the Research Newsletter of the College of General Practitioners, which was renamed on 1 January 1958 the Journal of the College of General Prac¬ titioners, has proved a precious lifeline through which research-minded general practitioners have been able to breathe life into each other's ideas. It will be an everlasting tribute to the early Research Committee of the College, and particularly to the late Dr R. M. S. McConaghey, that as early as the mid-1950s the need for a journal of record for general practice was iden¬ tified and met. For more than a decade it fell to the Royal College of General Practitioners in the United Kingdom to produce the only journal in English for general practice of the kind which has been established for many years in many other branches of medicine.
